Political Quotes

“Mr. President, let me make a couple of comments and observations. I know the Senator from Massachusetts started out by saying we have to take someone's word for it. My concern is, and I agree with his statement in reference to quotes that were made by Ronald Reagan, the ``trust, but verify.'' He also said, and when I look at this, I think this is--I think it is flawed in all the ways we talked about this before. But I remember the statement actually, I was here, when Reagan came back from Iceland. He said what Mr. Gorbachev was demanding at Reykjavik was that the United States agree to a new version of the 14-year-old ABM Treaty that the Soviet Union had already violated. I told him we don't make those kinds of deals in the United States. We prefer no agreement than to bring home a bad agreement to the United States. I think we are--most of us who have questions that were unanswered and we want amendments--are those who do not believe this is a good treaty. When the Senator talks about the number of inspections, let's keep in mind when we did the first treaty, we were only inspecting new facilities, existing facilities, facilities that could be used, warheads that could be used, looking at the MIRV situation. But now, on this one, we also want to inspect to make sure those things they had agreed to destroy they actually have destroyed. That is why I talked about the debris--rather than seeing something destroyed, they look at the debris that is left over.…”